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The ten-year anniversary publication of the bestselling paradigm-shifting inquiry into the accepted, normal demands of school, as illuminated by moving portraits of four young “problem children,” with a new preface by the author
“Riveting, luminous, and terrifying, this little book gives us the tools, the vision, and the confidence to free our children to change the world.” —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams
In this dazzling debut that Monique Couvson says “challenges us to rethink oppressive and punitive responses to problematic student behavior,” former elementary school teacher Carla Shalaby explores the everyday lives of four young children, challenging the ways we identify and understand “troublemakers.” Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children—Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus—Troublemakers allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem.
From Zora’s proud individuality and Marcus’s open willfulness, to Sean’s struggle with authority and Lucas’s tenacious imagination, comes profound insight—for educators and parents alike—into how schools engender, exclude, and then try to erase trouble, right along with the young people accused of making it. And although the harsh disciplining of adolescent behavior has been called out as part of a school-to-prison pipeline, the children we meet in these pages demonstrate how a child’s path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age.
Shalaby’s empathetic, discerning, and elegant prose gives us a deeply textured look at what noncompliance signals about the environments we require students to adapt to in our schools. Both urgent and timely, this paradigm-shifting book challenges our typical expectations for young children and with principled affection reveals how these demands—despite good intentions—work to undermine the pursuit of a free and just society.
—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams
“I absolutely LOVE how Shalaby’s work humanizes ‘troublemaking’ and skillfully challenges us to rethink oppressive and punitive responses to problematic student behavior. This is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in shifting the prevailing consciousness that has fueled the criminalization of our children.”
—Monique W. Morris, author of Pushout
“Shalaby illuminates critical lessons for all of us about living and learning and about growing and developing as whole, free human beings. Troublemakers is a necessary book in these troubled times.”
—Bill Ayers, author of Demand the Impossible! and To Teach
“The implications of this book for our schools, and for our society, are truly radical. Every teacher and teacher-in-training should read it. Come to think of it, so should every policy-maker and every education activist. This outstanding book raises tough questions. If we want humane schools and a just society, we have to ask them.”
—Brian Jones, teacher, writer, activist
“In engaging, detailed descriptions of four early elementary-aged children already labeled ‘troublemakers,’ readers see the real challenges they pose along with their keen insights, creativity, and resistance that could and should enrich all our lives. This moving work calls on us to re-imagine schools as places where we could learn from the children who, against all odds, ‘sing freedom.’”
—Deborah Menkart, executive director, Teaching for Change
“An important work that every teacher and parent should read.”
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, author of The Dreamkeepers
“Writing about classroom dynamics involving children who have trouble sitting still, following directions, and generally being ‘good’ in class. . . . [Shalaby’s] vivid descriptions of young children will remind many readers of Jonathan Kozol’s best work. . . . Recommended for all academic libraries, especially those serving future teachers.”
—Library Journal
Carla Shalaby is a former elementary school teacher who has studied at the Rutgers and Harvard graduate schools of education and directed elementary education programs at Brown University and Wellesley College. Her work focuses on the critical role that children and teachers play in the ongoing struggle for justice. She lives in Detroit.